The national women’s cricket team, the Capricorn Eagles have improved significantly despite falling short at the final hurdle last week.
Competing in the Capricorn Women’s T20 Quadrangular tournament, Namibia started off like a house on fire, winning all six their group matches to qualify for the final with ease.
Two of those wins were against Uganda, whom they once again faced in the final, but this time they fell short, as Uganda won by 17 runs in a high scoring match.
Batting first, Uganda amassed 146 runs for three wickets, with captain Janet Mbabazi scoring 61 and Ritah Musamali 31 not out.
It was a big target, but the Eagles chased it from the start as Sune Wittmann (33) and Mezerly Gorases (27) shared an opening stand of 51 off 7,3 overs. There were also rapid contributions from Mekelaye Mwatile (17), Arrasta Diergaardt (16) and Kayleen Green (16 not out), but Namibia gradually fell behind the required run rate and eventually reached 129/6, to fall 17 runs short.
Despite the final defeat, Namibia had shown great form throughout the tournament, with two victories each against Uganda, Hong Kong and Tanzania, while Namibia’s players also dominated the individual awards.
Captain Sune Wittmann won the batter of the tournament award with a total of 238 runs at an average of 47.60, while Meke Mwatile won the bowler of the series award with eight wickets at an economy rate of 5.65.
Mwatile also won the player of the series award with 443 points, with Wittmann coming second (427) and Wilka Mwatile third (332).
It was a great start for new coach Gerhard Lotter, and also a big improvement on their previous international outings when they only won one out of 11 matches in the Emerging Nations Trophy in Thailand and the Global T20 World Cup Qualifier in Nepal.
Long journey to success
At the prize giving ceremony, Marlize Horn of the sponsors, the Capricorn Group congratulated the Eagles on their performances.
“I’d like to congratulate the winning team Uganda – I would have loved to hand over the trophy to our Capricorn Eagles, but I just want to say that we are immensely proud of them, winning six out of seven matches – well done girls,” she said.
“This is a journey where we don’t just look at today’s result – it is a journey that we embarked upon with you and our collective goal of empowering women and girls cricket in Namibia, as connectors of positive change. We are here to support you; we will continue to support you, and we are extremely proud of you – you really flew the Namibian flag high,” she added.
Namibian captain Sune Wittmann says she was very proud of her team.
“It’s never nice losing a final, but I think it’s been an immense tournament for us. I think coming into a tournament like after losing 10 out of 11 matches just shows how much we have grown over the past few months. I think there’s been a lot of growth and I’m so proud of this team, if you look at where we were, and I’m so excited about the journey that’s ahead for us,” she says.
Coach Lotter says the tournament was a success.
“We fell short by 17 runs in the final, but overall the tournament went very well. We won six out of seven matches, which is a big improvement on our previous international matches, and now it’s crucial that we maintain this momentum going forward,” he says.
“In the final the plan was to take it away early on in the Powerplay, but we fell a bit short there, and then we lost a bit of momentum in the middle overs. They also bowled really well and in the final three overs we needed over 10 or 11 runs per over which was just a bit too much,” he adds.
Lotter says their planning had reaped rewards.
“I think there were a lot of small individual victories and milestones that we could celebrate. The players fulfilled their roles within the team very well, from a batting and bowling perspective and structure-wise. In T20 cricket it comes down to execution and giving the players the proper skill sets to execute on the day, so I think planning wise it went very well until the final. I think our top six batters proved that we can chase any total, and we can set a good total as well,” he says.
“The girls are taking a bit of a break now, but next we will start preparing for the Africa u19 Women’s World Cup qualifiers, while Ireland u19 ladies will also arrive for a tournament in preparation for the u19 Women’s World Cup. Then our senior women have another series in Uganda coming up, so we are just waiting to confirm the dates,” he says.
